


Under Your Skin (Over the Moon)

by mthrfkrgdhrwego (universalchampbalor)



Series: TOG Fics [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Accidental Voyeurism, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Blood Kink, Bondage, Booker is Bad At Feelings™, Booker | Sebastien le Livre-centric, Bottom Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Cocaine, Dirty Talk, Dom Nicky, Dom/sub, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Feelings Realization, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Knifeplay, M/M, Mentioned Character Death, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Public Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sub Joe, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Top Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Voyeurism, eventual joe/nicky/booker, eventual polyamory, i havent written since quarantine began and now here i am with this lmao, i watched Jeeg and Dangerous Fortune back to back so here we are, it's in passing atm but it may get worse later who knows, it's vague and in passing but it's there lmao, just. so much dirty talk, look i need to use my fashion history degree for something alright, the second part is just. me being a whore tbh, this first part is. disjointed and weird but Oh Well, this is gonna be. long and horny bc im me, this is what happens when a history major writes immortal porn, those two are absolutely connected, vague historical allusions to ww2, what's up im a goth whore lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26115334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universalchampbalor/pseuds/mthrfkrgdhrwego
Summary: Five times Booker watches Joe and Nicky, and one time he joins in
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: TOG Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896247
Comments: 31
Kudos: 260





	1. July 18th, 1850

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe this somehow spawned from [That One Gif](https://hawkaye.tumblr.com/post/626490234864025600/isnt-this-what-you-always-dreamed-of) of Luca in A Dangerous Fortune lmao

Immortality leaves little room for privacy.

Obviously, privacy is a big factor in how they live their life. They isolate, erase, delete, conceal. They shield themselves from the public eye, and when that inevitably fails, they move on, like specters in the wind. Privacy from the rest of the world is what they strove for: isolation, secrecy, enigmatism. With each other, however, there was no hope for privacy.

The first time it happens, Sebastien is barely into his eighties, and they’re somewhere in Schwyz, Switzerland. They’ve been traveling nonstop for the past two years, helping in countless revolutions in Europe. War still leaves a bitter taste in Sebastien’s mouth, leaves his hands feeling cold and numb and dead with phantom frostbite. It’s important work, though, work that needs to be done, and he’d rather take a litany of bullets than an innocent revolutionary who won’t get back up.

By 1850, the fighting had largely slowed. There are occasional battles scattered across Europe, but for the most part, they remain scarce and smaller in scale. They’ve settled down in the outskirts of Schwyz, where they spend their time helping with reconstruction efforts and various forms of labor that are menial to varying degrees.

Andromache has taken up work as a farmhand at a nearby farm, helping raise and care for the livestock. Despite being new to this life, his existence a drop in the ocean of her experience, Sebastien understands her desire to raise and cultivate and care for something after all the death and destruction. He himself has settled into life as a carpenter, helping the others around them rebuild their houses left ruined by the small wars. It’s hard work, exhausting, but rewarding nonetheless. It does something, however small that something may be, to lessen the deep, visceral ache that’s taken up seemingly permanent residence in his heart.

Nicolo has become a leatherworker, making all sorts of items from shoes to belts to household tools. The smell of tannin and polish cling to his clothes, to his dye-stained hands. Yusuf has taken to helping at the local library, maintaining books and organizing shelves. To Sebastien, it seems like nothing more than dull, tedious, mind numbing work, but Yusuf finds solace in it, losing himself between the shelves, amongst the stale smell of old, worn paper.

Andromache lives on the farm, in her own small quarters, away from the main house. It’s modest, to put it softly, but she’s more than pleased with it. It also affords her well-deserved privacy from the others, a space away from the energy and presence that she will likely never be without. It’s comforting, to have company, to have the knowledge that company will almost always be available, but it can be tiring too, draining, zapping. The respite is nice.

Nicolo and Yusuf have a small home together, above Nicolo’s leather shop. It’s nice, if a little cramped, with a lovely back garden and a view of the Swiss mountains stretching endlessly into the horizon. It’s a quaint house, and they’re kind enough to share with Sebastien when he cannot find his own lodgings.

The only downside is the single bedroom.

Sebastien certainly doesn’t mind sleeping on the sofa, or on a small, soft cot piled with blankets in the corner of the living room, by the modest fireplace. To be blunt, most nights Sebastien is too drunk to care about sleeping on the floor, or on the aging, sagging sofa. There are days where the aches down to his bones don’t seem to want to heal, or be able to heal, and he wants nothing more than to sleep on a soft, cushiony bed, but he makes do. He feels like an imposition enough as it is.

Still, there are nights where he ends up in Yusuf and Nicolo’s room.

It doesn’t happen often, and never of Sebastien’s cognizant, sober, free will. Usually, he ends up in their room after a long, endless day where his brain won’t stop spiraling and he’s worked his hands to bone and back again, fighting against the healing his body so desperately wants to engage in. Those days are rare; or, more accurately, they’re less likely to be noticed by the others, regardless of the frequency in his own head. He’s gotten good at hiding pain. They all have.

On those nights, hard fought for and still so distant, Nicolo invariably finds him and guides him home, gentle hands rubbing soothing circles across his back as he helps Sebastien stumble back to their home, just disconnected enough from reality to not fight back.

Yusuf is always waiting, with warm coffee and whatever dinner Nicolo had cooked that night. He sits at the end of the table and idly talks while Sebastien eats, never asking questions he expects an answer to.

Eventually, one of them will help him remove his shoes, his jacket, his trousers, until he’s down to his undergarments. On particularly bad nights, he ends up sandwiched between them, an arm or two wrapped around him. Most nights, though, he sleeps in the armchair.

The armchair is by no means a comfortable place to sleep, cramped and stiff an unnatural, but it’s much better than the alternative. The alternative is laying in his pantaloons between two wonderful men who have been in love for longer than he can fathom; the alternative is being surrounded by love in the most intimate way, all while he’s drowning in his own sorrows and loneliness.

As painful as sleeping in an armchair can be, the pain of having to sleep between Yusuf and Nicolo is infinitely worse, worse than every painful death Sebastien has suffered combined.

When it first happens, it’s the middle of July, when the heat is sweltering and suffocating. Sebastien’s drunk himself half to death, barely able to hold his head straight on his booze-weakened neck. Summer months are hard for him; they bring forth memories of hospitals and cancer and screaming. He prefers to disconnect entirely until the weather calms into autumn.

He wakes up with a start, likely in the middle of the night. He’s drenched in sweat, the cotton of his thin undershirt sticking to his back. The tattered blanket he’d been curled up in is tangled around his legs, which are stiff and aching from being curled in the armchair for hours. It’s mostly dark, with thin, bright slivers of moonlight streaming through the slats of the shutters.

He stares at the bed, trying to ground himself. It’s July 18th, 1850. He is in Schwyz, Switzerland. He is in Yusuf and Nicolo’s bedroom, not in a hollow French hospital. He’s fine. He’s ok. They’re right there.

They’re… right in front of him. Doing something that is most definitely not sleeping.

Sebastien feels sick. Something vile settles in his chest, right between his lungs, growing larger and hotter the longer he stares. He knows he’s overstepping, that he’s wildly out of line, that he’s violating their trust and privacy. He understands, viscerally, that this is not something for people like him, that he will never have this.

Even as guilt and shame floods his throat, he cannot drag his eyes away from the slow drag of Yusuf’s hips, from the gentle way Nicolo cards his fingers in Yusuf’s hair, from the moonlight shining against spit-slick slack mouths, pouring choked off moans into the night. He cannot look away from the sheet pooling around Yusuf’s calves, leaving them almost entirely bare, leaving themselves open and vulnerable.

Sebastien feels like the scum of the earth for watching, and that feeling only magnifies when Nicolo rolls his head to the side and makes eye contact.

Sebastien is frozen, heart jackrabbiting against his ribs like it’ll be able to escape if it tries hard enough. He has the vacant, delirious thought of his heart springing from his chest, like something from a satirical plate. He doesn’t know if he’s breathing, doesn’t know if he has the mental capacity to breathe.

Nicolo is certainly breathing. His chest rises and falls, intermittent with sudden gasps whenever Yusuf catches him off guard. His lips are kiss-swollen and spit-slick, parted around breathy pants and hastily stifled moans. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, almost like he’s staring _through_ Sebastien instead of _at_ him. The thought isn’t comforting.

Yusuf is too wrapped up in his task to notice the audience of one. Instead, he’s staring at Nicolo intently, all his attention focused solely on the man spread out beneath him. He’s holding Nicolo’s hands, pressing them hard against the mattress above the Italian’s head. He’s fucking Nicolo with a single-minded vigor, with the intensity of a warrior. Sebastien occasionally tears his eyes away from Nicolo’s to stare at the flexing in Yusuf’s thighs and the steady, brutal pace of his hips.

Between exhalations and moans, Nicolo mumbles something. It’s a little too quiet for Sebastien to make out, and he doubts it’s being spoken in a language he understands. Yusuf does, however, and Nicolo must have mentioned their voyeur because Yusuf’s head turns quickly to stare at Sebastien.

Simply seeing them like this was enough to boil Sebastien’s blood and stir his body. Having Nicolo’s attention on him, being the focus of his stormy, pale eyes, was enough to settle something hot and sick in the pit of Sebastien’s pelvis. Having _both_ of their attention, having two pairs of lust hazed eyes focused on him and him alone, all while still engaged in a carnal dance, is enough to make Sebastien so hard it hurts.

And then Yusuf comes.

It happens in almost the exact instant he locks eyes with Sebastien. His hips falter before settling against Nicolo’s ass, occasionally jerking with the aftershocks. A deep, heady groan falls from his lips amidst a torrent of impassioned Arabic.

Nicolo makes a noise in the back of his throat, wounded and aching as his hips twitch upwards weakly. Yusuf drops his mouth to Nicolo’s ear and whispers something to him, inaudible over the sound of Sebastien’s heart. He frees one of Nicolo’s hands to instead grip his cock, giving it a few careful, steady strokes, all the while continuing his low murmuring. Nicolo shivers and comes, maintaining eye contact with Sebastien the entire time.

Sebastien doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.


	2. November 22nd, 1892

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all the language kink really jumped out here

It’s forty years before anything like that happens again.

There’s a part of Sebastien, the not insignificant part of him that judges time by the spaces between drinks, that’s convinced he imagined it. The more he thinks about it, the less real it seems. The part of his brain that’s touting _logicality_ despite knowing nothing, points out there’s no way in hell that someone like Yusuf, someone like Nicolo, would ever look at someone like _him_ the way he feels like he was looked at.

By 1890, he’s convinced himself that it never happened, that it was an inane dream designed by the part of him that’s drowning in loneliness, the part of him wallowing in the desperate desire to be _wanted_. He resigns himself to a life in accompanied solitude, to a life surrounded by the vast multitudes of _love_ that Yusuf and Nicolo radiate.

In 1892, they’re settled in the outskirts of New York City. They share a quaint two-story house, large enough to allow them space, but small enough to be affordable. Nicholas’s (as Nicolo has taken to calling himself) job as a chef doesn’t pay horribly well, and neither does Sebastien’s job as a forger (old habits die hard). Andy’s work as a butcher isn’t glamorous or particularly lucrative either. Joseph makes the most money of them, seeing as he runs a small art gallery deep in the bowels of Queens.

Having a room for himself is a luxury Sebastien isn’t used to; at least, not as _permanent_ one. He’s used to staying with the others, or in hotels or cheap lodgings. Maybe it’s the vagabond in him, or maybe it’s the part of him that’s deathly afraid of commitment and permanency; whatever the reason, it’s rare for Sebastien to have a place to call his own. It’s nice, the privacy; the walls are thick enough that he doesn’t have to worry about the others hearing him in the midst of a breakdown, outside of the occasional bout of screaming.

That’s becoming less and less common though. Maybe he’s growing as a person, dealing with his issues. Or maybe he’s just self-medicating and repressing it. God only knows.

New York winters are brutal, and as much as Sebastien has come to love the house they’ve made a home, it provides little respite from the freezing temperatures. It’s the tail end of November, and the snowstorms haven’t stopped for more than a day in the past week. The floorboards are frigid, and the walls creak and groan with the ever-increasing winds.

Sebastien can’t sleep, his brain too awake and wrapped up with hazy memories of freezing encampments in the Russian wilderness to allow him any rest. He spends approximately three eternities staring at the spiderweb cracks in his ceiling, trying to ignore the ghosts of frostbite that seem to climb up his legs.

At around four in the morning, he admits defeat and declares sleep a lost cause. He pulls himself out of bed, cramming his feet into worn wool slippers to hopefully avoid the sting of the floorboards. He doesn’t have a plan per se, nor any real idea of how to occupy his time. As he makes his way to the kitchen, with the half-formed idea to make himself an Irish coffee, he pauses in the hallway.

Andy’s door is flung open, revealing an empty room. It’s not uncommon for her to be gone in the wee hours of the morning, even if they don’t have a clear idea of what she does in those few, solitary hours. That’s not what catches his attention. What catches his attention is Joseph and Nicholas’s door being slightly ajar, spilling a small sliver of slowly flickering candlelight into the hallway.

Rarely is their door left open; most of the time, it rests firmly shut, only allowing a small whisper of light to escape from under the door. Call it a desire for privacy or paranoia or whatnot; Sebastien has never been able to find a concrete answer as to why their door remains closed from the time they retire at night to the moment they awake in the morning. He’s pretty sure he can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen the door open while the room was occupied.

Curiosity and boredom are a dangerous enough combination without the addition of sleep deprivation, and Sebastien has never had a particularly strong sense of self control. Despite his better judgement, Sebastien diverts from his path to the kitchen to peer into the room through the two-inch gap the door leaves.

The room is lit by a candle on Joseph’s bedside table, though judging by the level of light, there’s likely one on Nicholas’s nightstand as well. Sebastien can only see Joseph’s side of the bed, and he can’t tell if that’s a mercy or a curse.

When Joseph falls into Sebastien’s line of sight, that distinction grows blurrier.

Joseph’s hair is wrecked, standing at odd angles, many of which being assisted by the hand Nicholas has sunk into his curls. His mouth is slack and spit-slick, parted around breathy moans and mumbled words Sebastien can’t quite make out. His eyes are lidded, glassy, unfocused.

Against all better judgement and logic, against the screaming of his brain, Sebastien carefully nudges the door open a little further.

Joseph’s knees are under him, hitching his lower half off the bed. His arms are pressed against the line of his back, held together at the wrist by. By a fucking _belt_ , cinched tight around the delicate bones of his wrist. The loose end of the belt is wrapped around Nicholas’s right fist, pulled taut to strain Joseph’s shoulders. His cheek would be rested on the bed if it weren’t for Nicholas’s hand yanking his head back by the roots of his hair.

Sebastien can’t tear his eyes away from Joseph’s cock, hanging hard and heavy between his thighs. He’s practically _dripping_ with need, precome beading at the tip. His thighs are shaking, _trembling_ , tight with tension. He looks like a bowstring, like a rubber band about to snap.

Nicholas is a sight to behold as well. He’s backlit by the candle on his end table, the soft light haloing through his sleep-mussed hair. He’s on his knees as well, straightened to his full height. His hips are crushed to Joseph’s, and it’s clear to Sebastien that Nicholas is fucking Joseph within an inch of his life.

Over the rushing in his ears, Sebastien is able to catch what Nicholas _snarls_ at Joseph. It takes a second for him to translate the low, rough, “Altasawul laha, eahira,” that Nicholas _spits_ at Joseph. _Beg for it, whore_ , Sebastien’s brain helpfully supplies, before promptly breaking.

Joseph’s response sounds like a _sob_ , quiet and desperate, breathy and _intense_. “Obsecro, Nicolo. Per favore, faro qualsiasi cosa. Te require, obsecro, Nicolo. Taba li, raja’.” It sounds like a prayer, a promise, devotion and desperation all rolled into one. Sebastien can recognize multiple languages, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to fully identify and translate them. Still, the _intention_ is apparent, and the sight of Joseph _begging_ Nicholas to fuck him goes straight to his cock, which is quickly filling in his union suit.

He’s not really _thinking_ as he hastily unbuttons the lowest button on his union suit, and he’s certainly not thinking as he shoves his hand inside. He brings his other hand up and bites into the meat of his thenar webspace. He _moans_ into the side of his hand, doing his damnedest to cut the noise off before it can be heard. His face is flushed, _burning_ with the blood settled in his cheeks, hot with arousal and _shame_.

Thankfully, Joseph and Nicholas are entirely wrapped up in each other. Joseph’s mouth is hanging open, making small, punched out moans that sounds entirely instinctual, forced out of him by the rough, animalistic thrusts Nicholas is delivering. The thrusts are strong enough to jar Joseph further up the bed, barely held in place by the way Nicholas is white knuckling a fistful of hair.

Joseph’s mouth is so fucking _red_ , open and wet and _waiting_ , and there’s a not insignificant part of Sebastien that desperately wants to feel that mouth on his cock. He groans into his hand as he grinds against his palm, too lost in the vision in front of him to effectively stroke himself. It doesn’t really matter anyway, because he’s _so fucking close_ he can taste it, and finesse is unlikely to get him there any quicker.

There’s _filth_ pouring from Nicholas’s mouth, rough Italian filling the air along with the sound of him fucking Joseph. Sebastien is absolutely not coherent enough to translate it, and he very seriously doubts Joseph is any better off. The _sound_ of it, though, rough and fluid and damn near _entrancing_ , is enough to make Sebastien fuck against his hand harder.

Nicholas is still yanking on the belt, though his chest is plastered across the line of Joseph’s back, pinning his arms between them. His mouth is pressed to Joseph’s ear, the occasional flash of teeth shining in the light when he _bites_ on Joseph’s earlobe. His words are little more than a _growl,_ low and dirty and Jesus Christ Sebastien is never going to be able to hear Nicholas speak Italian without getting hard.

He catches the occasional snippet of the never-ending torrent that Nicholas is saying. _Come sei bagnata_ makes Joseph _whimper_ , high in the back of his throat. _Sei la mei puttana_ gets a sharp cry, loud for a split second before Nicholas cuts it off by wrenching Joseph’s head further back. _Guardati, contorcendoti come una cagna in calore. Vuoi toccarti, vero?_ is tinged with condescension, almost fucking _patronizing_.

 _Vieni ora_ barely passes Nicholas’s lips before Joseph is coming, completely untouched, his cock jerking between his legs. Saliva flood Sebastien’s mouth, and the image of himself on his knees for Joseph is enough to make him come into his palm. He hears Nicholas’s groan as he comes, but it’s distant, deafened by the roar of his blood in his ears.

Sebastien slumps against the wall, thumping his head against the drywall as silently as he can. He feels boneless, heavy, _tired_. He sends silent thanks to whatever deity might be watching as his eyes slide shut for a blissful moment.

His momentary peace is interrupted when he hears, “Next time Sebastien, don’t bother trying to hide. You’re shit at it.”

Sebastien’s head snaps up, eyes wide as he stares into Joseph and Nicholas’s room. Joseph is staring at him with half lidded eyes, his head pillowed against his crossed arms, now free from their bonds. Nicholas is sitting at the foot of the bed, hooded eyes dark and alert as they pierce into Sebastien.

Despite the panic and shame flooding his system, Sebastien’s cock makes a valiant effort to get hard again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of these translations are likely wrong but here's what I intended lmao  
> Altasawul laha, eahira- Beg for it, whore (Arabic)  
> Obsecro- Please (Latin)  
> Per favore, faro qualsiasi cosa- Please, I'll do anything (Italian)  
> Te require- I need you (Latin)  
> Taba li- Fuck me (Arabic)  
> Come sei bagnata- You're so wet (Italian)  
> Sei la mei puttana- You're my whore (Italian)  
> Guardati, contorcendoti come una cagna in calore- Look at you, writhing like a bitch in heat (Italian)  
> Vuoi toccarti, vero- You want to touch yourself, right? (Italian)  
> Vieni ora- Come, now (Italian)


	3. August 7th, 1985

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some warnings about this chapter bc I am Fully On My Bullshit™ here:  
> Nicky is high on coke during this chapter. It's mentioned a few times.  
> Booker is drunk. It's mentioned a few times.  
> There is knifeplay and blood kink involved here, and it sure is something.  
> (This chapter was edited on 2/3/21 to add in Italics that didn't get transferred to the HTML code right when it was first posted)

It takes almost a hundred fucking years before anything happens.

As much as Sebastien’s brain is screaming at him, insisting he’s lost his fucking mind, he knows that what’s happened is real. It’s infrequent and confusing and feels like some sort of fucked up dream, but it’s as real and fleeting as the injuries he accumulates.

The 20th century is tumultuous, to say the least. They try to avoid talking about the 30s and 40s, avoiding the decades to skirt around the still open and raw emotional wounds left over. Still, Andy and Joe have always had a particular soft spot for Germany, which is how they find themselves living in a refurbished warehouse in Leipzig. Most of them spend their days in the industrial parts of town, working their hands to the bone in factories. It’s monotonous, but it fills their pockets enough and it’s something to pass the days before the city truly comes alive at sundown.

Conne Island is a particular favorite of Booker’s.

The clubs and venues provide the perfect kind of large crowd anonymity that allows him to drown his demons in cheap liquor that lights his insides like a forest fire. The warmth and numbness have become a crutch, a way to smother the _feelings_ burrowing deeper and deeper into his ribcage every time he sees his comrades.

Most of the time, he’s alone in the crowds, listening to industrial and alternative bands he can’t be bothered to understand. He ignores the brave few who attempt to pull him into the swarming, pulsing dancefloors and instead nurses drink after drink in whatever dark, dingy corner he can squeeze himself into.

Sometimes, though, he stumbles into the others.

Nicky has taken well to the culture, showing up in the clubs with eyeliner smudged around his shining eyes, his hair perfectly messy and his shirt unbuttoned just enough to look effortless. His lips are red, and Booker can never tell if it’s from lipstick or kissing, no matter how much he stares. The gold chain around his neck glitters like a beacon, his smile like a dangerous invitation that Booker can never fully understand.

Joe is never one to be shown up, though, and together they steal all the air out of the room. Joe inevitably ends up topless, with sweat glittering across his body as he moves fluidly to the chaotic music, jeans riding just low enough on his hips to be purposeful. Rings and necklaces and bracelets glitter against his skin, the silver contrasting against the gold of his skin.

Booker is equal parts entranced and absolutely fucked.

Most of the time, when he realizes he’s not the only immortal in the room, Booker plants his feet and steels his nerves and makes a valiant effort to keep his focus on his drink. It never works, and he spends most of the night staring at the beautiful, effortless dance that Nicky and Joe weave, his attention intercut with images of their bodies engaged in a much different sort of tango. He tries, and fails, to keep his eyes off Nicky’s lips, or Joe’s sharp smile, or the hooded eyes he finds catching his attention.

It’s a sweltering August day, reaching farther and farther towards 90°. Booker’s switched his usual drink of scotch for straight vodka, chilled enough to freeze his fingertips. The alcohol is more of a syrup than a liquid, but the temperature more than makes up for the thickness. Booker’s well past tipsy and on his way to drunk when a hand land on his shoulder.

He instinctually grabs the offending limb, about to twist the stranger into an armlock before he recognizes the rings adorning the pale, slender fingers digging into his trapezius. He looks up, his eyes catching Nicky’s. All the breath leaves his lungs.

Nicky looks fucking _gorgeous_. His eyes, bright and piercing and full of _life_ , are ringed with smudged, smeared eyeliner that just serves to make the blue look that much more extreme. His pupils are blown _wide_ , his hands fidgety against his shoulder in a way that Booker recognizes as cocaine. His lips are _red_ , slick with saliva and parted in a grin that presses between Booker’s ribs like a dagger. His shirt, a loose, slightly sheer black button up, is completely undone, hanging limply from his shoulders. The gold chain wrapped around his throat is something between a threat and a promise.

“Come dance with me.” Nicky’s words are nearly lost over the band screaming on the stage, but Booker’s eyes are glued to Nicky’s mouth with enough focus that he can practically read them. Nicky’s looking at him through his lashes, demure in a way that looks downright _filthy_. The strobe lights paint his skin in blues and pinks and greens, catching on the line of his cheekbones, the dips of his collarbones, the shadow of his week-old stubble. His fingers tighten against Booker’s shoulder.

Booker doesn’t even have time to protest before he’s got Joe next to him, just close enough to belie the casualness of his posture. His shirt is already gone, and the sweat across his chest looks more like glitter in the flashing lights. A sharply angular gold earring dangles from his left ear and sways when he leans in closer to whisper in Booker’s ear.

“Come on, Sebastien, live a little. Have fun with us.” His breath is warm against Booker’s ear. If Booker turns his head towards Joe, he can smell the fruity gum he chews throughout the day. His smile feels like a threat, a promise, a warning, an invitation, the entire universe and then some wrapped up into a pair of lips. Booker feels like he’s drowning.

He’s helpless to their insistence, completely at the mercy of their pulling hands. He’s tugged into the writhing mass of the dancefloor, lead through the packed crowd by Nicky’s grip on his wrist and Joe’s hand wrapped in the back of his shirt.

He can’t hear himself think over the pounding bass and heavy drums. All he’s aware of is his heart pounding in his palms and the warmth of the moving crowd. He feels suffocated, but in a welcome way, more like a hug than a straitjacket. The lights are headache inducing, but it’s entirely worth it for the way they play across his friend’s skin.

He can barely dance on a good day, so here, teetering on the edge of drunkenness with Joe and Nicky surrounding him, it’s a lost cause. He’s seen them in this club before, has spent countless nights watching them move together from his little corner by the bar. Seeing it this close, feeling them move against him, is something else entirely. It’s ethereal, otherworldly, something his brain can’t begin to comprehend.

It doesn’t take long before his mind is completely lost.

When he sees Nicky swaying in front of him, all he can think of is his open, panting mouth as Joe slowly fucked him into the mattress all those years ago. The movement of Joe’s hips behind him, something that can be best described as a _grind_ , reminds him of that night. Joe’s hands on his hips feel like a brand, like something that will irreparably change his body forever.

He can barely breathe, his chest heavy and full of cotton as Nicky gets shoved against his chest. The Italian smiles up at him, arms circling his neck, and Booker’s fucking lost. The grin he feels Joe press into his shoulder is too fucking much to handle.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, lost in the depths of the crowd. The music blends together, the end of one flowing effortlessly into the beginning of another. Booker could care less about the music, though, and allows his attention to be absorbed by the rasp of Joe’s beard against his neck and the flushed skin of Nicky’s chest. He’s sore and drunk and tired and eventually, with the strength of a man he isn’t, he pulls himself away from them to stumble home.

Outside is just as hot as the interior of the club, but the air is cleaner, less heady. He leans against the side of the building and rests his head against the bricks, staring up at the pollution strangled stars as he catches his breath.

The reprieve sobers him enough that he’s confident he can get home, but it takes him another five minutes before he’s able to make his feet drag across the ground. He feels heavy, weighed down by exhaustion and whatever the fuck is squirming in the pit of his stomach.

He makes it about ten feet before his feet glue to the sidewalk.

Of fucking course this would happen. The universe is out to punish him. It’s the only explanation.

As he’s leaving, he hears a sound from the alley between the club and the bookstore next door. Normally, he’d ignore it and just go on his way, but the sound, something akin to a choked off gasp, is familiar in the worst way.

He doesn’t bother hiding beyond pressing against the wall as he peers around the corner at Joe and Nicky.

Nicky’s back is shoved against the bricks, his shirt tangled around his wrists. His chest is heaving underneath Joe’s palm as the taller man kisses him senseless. The kiss looks like a war, teeth and tongue and Joe’s hands sinking into Nicky’s hair and _pulling_.

Nicky’s bitten back moan is fucking _music_ , falling from his lips as Joe’s hands secure his head back to allow better access to the smooth column of his neck. Joe’s teeth leave vicious hickeys that fade almost instantly, and Booker finds himself hating their healing when he sees the pretty red flush of blood under skin.

Nicky manages to free his hands from his shirt, the garment falling to the ground, forgotten entirely. He drags his nails down Joe’s back, leaving deep scratches that last only a second. His left foot curls to catch the back of Joe’s ankle, hooking it to pull him closer.

Joe abandons Nicky’s neck in favor of shoving his arms above his head, pressing Nicky’s wrists _hard_ into the bricks. “Are you going to be a good little boy or are you going to do this the hard way?” He asks, his voice rough in the back of his throat, sex personified.

Nicky grins like a canary and shifts his legs wider, pressing his hips forwards into Joe’s. He moans, loud and showy and _lewd_ , twisting his wrists in Joe’s grip, scraping his skin against the wall. He looks like something out of a wet dream, like the centerfold of the kind of dirty porn mag that makes Booker feel slimy. He looks beautiful.

Joe’s smile has a dark edge to it, something that lights Booker on fire. He shifts both of Nicky’s wrists into one of his hands and grabs something from his back pocket. Nicky’s eyes blow wide, a red flush settling high on his cheekbones.

Booker’s confused until he sees that Joe was grabbing a switchblade from his pocket, and then he’s just confused and horny.

Joe flicks the blade open easily and holds it for Nicky to see. Nicky pants, twisting his arms restlessly as he stares between the blade and Joe. His chest is heaving, his breath shuddering.

“Still want to be a fucking brat?” Joe asks, forcing Nicky’s feet farther apart, just to the point of discomfort. Nicky makes a noise in the back of his throat, wordless and needy, and _presents_ his throat to Joe.

Joe pushes the point of the knife under Nicky’s jaw, digging into the soft flesh just behind his jugular. He keeps the pressure just hard enough to keep the wound open, allowing a small trail of blood to drag down Nicky’s chest. “Keep your fucking hands up there or I’ll cut them off.” Joe growls, dropping his hand.

His now free hand drags down Nicky’s chest, taking a detour to dig his nails into Nicky’s nipple and _pull_. Nicky presses into the pain, carefully maneuvering his head to keep the knife from slipping. Joe returns to his path, deftly popping the button to Nicky’s jeans open with one hand.

He shoves them just low enough to free Nicky’s cock. He’s not wearing underwear, and for some reason that makes Booker’s knees weak. Joe’s hand closes around Nicky roughly, looking just the right side of painful. He drags his hand up _slowly,_ pulling a breathy moan from Nicky’s red mouth.

“Look at you, tesoro, spreading your legs for me like a whore just because I asked. Look at how hard you are from a knife to your throat.” Joe _coos_ the words, his voice soft and saccharine, like he’s whispering sweet nothings instead of belittling dirty talk. Nicky moans again, dipping his chin just enough to cause the blood to fall a little faster from his throat.

Joe pauses to spit onto Nicky’s cock, using the saliva to slick his grip. Nicky whimpers, his hips jerking forwards. His hands are restless, flexing open and closed, twisting his fingers together, doing his damnedest to keep them in place above his head.

Joe carefully drags the knife down the line of Nicky’s neck, his collarbones, to the top of his chest, all in time with his rough stroking of Nicky’s cock. The skin heals as soon as it splits, but a few dark red trails are able to escape. With a practiced flick of his wrist, Joe cuts down the length of Nicky’s chest, just deep enough to allow him to slick his hand with blood.

He grabs Nicky’s cock again, spreading the blood down his length as he bites at Nicky’s jaw. “You’re such a filthy animal, getting off to this shit.” He growls, digging his thumb into the slit at the end of Nicky’s head.

Nicky answers with something between a moan and a laugh. “I’m getting off on being cut, but you’re the one hard over slicing me open and jacking me off with my blood on your hand.” His voice is wrecked, breathy and rough in all the right ways. His eyes are locked on Booker.

Booker hasn’t moved a muscle, still frozen, half hidden behind the corner. His cock is throbbing in his jeans, but he doesn’t dare take a hand off the wall for fear of falling over. His eyes can’t settle on anything, flicking between Joe’s hand and Nicky’s cock and the blade still resting on Nicky’s hips and Joe’s mouth and Nicky’s eyes.

“Asshole.” Joe growls. Nicky fucks his hips forwards, chasing Joe’s hand every time he pulls away. “Why don’t you put on a show for our little guest?” Nicky whispers, just loud enough for Booker to hear. His right hand drops from the wall to grab Joe’s shoulder and _push_ him to his knees.

Joe snorts, readjusting his grip on the knife. “You just want your cock sucked.” He mutters, yanking Nicky’s jeans a little farther down his thighs. Nicky looks fucking _debauched_ , his jeans pulled tight around his thighs, his cock and chest smeared with blood, his shirt abandoned behind him, his lips red and slick with spit. He shoves his hips towards Joe’s face.

“Of course. I never said I was being altruistic. It’s a win-win. I get my cock sucked, Booker gets a show, and you get to have something in your filthy mouth.” Nicky’s smile is knife-sharp and wicked as he threads a hand in Joe’s curls and pulls him forwards.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty and good in bed.” Joe looks up at Nicky and grins before pushing the knife against his hip. The smooth movement of his hand is mesmerizing, as is the pair of initials he carves into Nicky’s porcelain skin. Sadly, his handiwork fades after a second, but the sight is immediately seared into Booker’s brain forever.

Joe licks across where the wound was, collecting blood on his tongue. He licks lower and lower until his tongue is curling obscenely around the head of Nicky’s cock. Booker has never had misconceptions about his moral standings, but getting dizzy with lust over seeing Joe sucking blood off Nicky’s cock still feels like a new low.

Nicky throws his head back, smacking roughly against the bricks. His hands curl into Joe’s hair, nails digging into his scalp. The muscles in his arms, his chest, his neck flex under the way he arches his back and tugs Joe closer. “Fuck, Booker, he’s so good with his mouth. He loves being on his knees for me like a cheap whore.” The thick syllables of the German they’ve taken to using curl around his tongue roughly. Booker’s always thought German was a sensual language (more than his native French, at least) but the way Nicky caresses every single syllable the same way he caresses Joe’s tongue feels fucking ridiculous. It feels planned, like an action calculated to get a reaction out of him, but Booker knows that’s just how Nicky _is_ , treating every word like it’s a morsel to be savored. An all too big part of Booker thinks that Nicky’s careful worship of spoken language is going to be what finally kills him for good.

He’s knocked out of his appreciation for Nicky’s pronunciation by hearing Joe _gag_ around Nicky’s cock.

The Italian has a vicious grip on Joe’s curls, knuckles turning white from the strength of his hold. He’s in the process of shoving Joe’s head down, forcing his cock deeper into the man’s throat. Joe gags a few times, but the majority of the noises forced out of his throat are wet gurgles and thick, choking swallows and muffled moans that go directly to Booker’s cock.

Booker’s arousal is sitting near the back of his mind, present but not insistent. He’s more than content to just _watch_ the wonderfully foreign, unique way Joe and Nicky manhandle and fuck each other, like if they stop touching for a second, they’ll combust. He’s content to just watch and not touch himself, that is, until he sees Joe rubbing his cock against Nicky’s shin.

There’s something about the fact that _Joe_ , someone who’s full of love and mirth and a suaveness that Booker will always envy, being so turned on by choking on his husband’s cock, with blood smeared on his lips, that he has to practically hump his leg like a dog in heat. He only takes his hand away from Nicky’s thigh long enough to pull his cock free from his jeans before he’s back to pressing bruises into the jut of Nicky’s hipbone.

Booker’s touching himself before he can process it. He knows, distantly, logically, that he’s standing in fucking public with his hands down his pants, watching his best friends fuck in an alley, but he knows it in the detached way that one knows what color they’re wearing; it isn’t important, or crucial, or even _relevant_ information, but it’s there. He _should_ care, because he absolutely has better things to do than get arrested for public indecency, but as he stares at Nicky fucking Joe’s face, he can’t find it in him to think about anything else.

Nicky’s left foot is raised, just the heel of his boot planted on the ground. The end of it, scuffed and dirty and steel-toed, is pushing Joe’s cock against his stomach, letting the older man rut against it wantonly. Booker wishes with everything he has to see if Nicky’s using enough force to leave tread marks on Joe’s skin.

His eyes lift to Nicky’s face with the half-baked desire to stare at his lips when he sees Nicky staring at him with a single-minded focus usually reserved for whoever’s in the scope of his rifle. Booker is close enough that he can see the fucked out look on his face, bathed in the flashing neon of the club’s sign. He’s close enough that he can see the coke-blown stretch of his pupils and the saliva smeared on his chin and the eyeliner running onto his cheekbones with the same sweat plastering his messy hair to his forehead. Booker thinks Nicky looks better than any piece of art in any museum, a masterpiece wrapped up into a man.

The shallow redness of the blood smeared across Nicky’s throat and chest, drying over perfect freckled skin, is a fucking _sight_. Booker’s seen all of them covered in various amounts of blood more times than he can count, and before this exact moment, he’s never realized that this is apparently a kink of his. Most of the time, blood just heralds that something’s wrong, that death is imminent, regardless of how fleeting it is. Blood is a warning, a threat. It always has been in his mind.

Here though, in some seedy alley in the middle of East Berlin, pinned under the weight of Nicky’s stare and the slick of his mouth, blood is a sacrament, a visualization of lust. Here, paired with Nicky’s heavy chest and the heady gasps of Joe’s lungs, blood becomes a celebration of _life_ in its most carnal. Suddenly, the alure of vampires makes sense. Booker wants to lick Nicky’s chest clean and ruin it all over again.

Booker _wants_.

This fact hits him like a punch to the gut, knocks the breath from his lungs, makes his cock jerk in his cramped jeans. It seems obvious, in retrospect, but hindsight is 20/20 and Booker’s never claimed to be an emotionally intelligent man. He’s been wanting nearly the past century (if he lets the vodka talk, he’s been wanting since the first time he saw Joe and Nicky, all those years ago in that frozen Russian forest) and all of that time threatens to knock the legs from under him.

In this moment, Booker wants to be Nicky, lost in pleasure and the heat of Joe’s mouth, open and vulnerable in the best way. He wants to be Joe, surrounded and controlled by Nicky. He wants to be between them, to feel their mouths, their hands, their eyes on him, all of the intensity of a nuke burning the inside of his lungs. He wants to soothe Nicky’s cuts with his mouth, even though the wounds have long since healed without leaving any mark. He wants to brush his fingertips against the bruises that should be on Joe’s neck.

 _Fuck_ , he’s in love.

This time, his knees _do_ give out, and he nearly falls flat on his face as a fucking two-ton weight crashes down over him. He catches himself with one hand, scraping his palm against the brick walls, nearly enough to cut himself open. His other hand goes from frantically working his cock in the limited space of his still-fastened jeans to just. Just _resting_ there, his brain completely offline in a way he’s never experienced before. He can’t even be ashamed about the fact that he’s just come in his pants because he’s too busy _reeling_ from this absolute fucking bombshell that just destroyed his entire world.

He sags against the wall, finally ducking away from the physical weight of Nicky’s eyes. He gulps in air that his lungs can’t seem to keep, hurtling dangerously towards hyperventilation. His hands are shaking. He distantly wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like.

He leaves, then, without seeing this through to the end, because his stomach turns perilously at the thought of seeing Joe and Nicky. He stumbles to their warehouse in a stupor, entirely absent through the streets and train stations and ghost stops. He doesn’t have it in him to respond to Andy’s deprecating joke upon his entry, nor to undress in any capacity before he collapses face first onto his bed.

Booker doesn’t sleep. He stares at the popcorn ceiling and the water-stained wallpaper and the spiderweb cracks in the plaster behind his dresser and through the rain blurring his window. He stares and stares and stares and tries not to vomit with guilt when his traitorous mind conjures the worryingly faded memory of his wife’s face. He hasn’t entertained the thought of _love_ since she died. He feels sick and slimy and like the scum of the fucking earth.

He leaves in the morning, leaving behind nothing more than a vague note and an apology left on Joe and Nicky’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW this was a fucking trip. I haven't written in like. literally A Year due to both pandemic-based writer's block and also increasing health issues, but a straight woman twice my age told me this fic was fetishizing gay men (I wrote a thread about this on my Twitter, I'm @1890sgothsloth lmao) so I wrote this in a spite-feuled frenzy over the course of 3 days. I rewatched every mickey Miranda scene just to hear Luca speak German for reference. This is over 4,000 words. It's like almost 12 pages in Word. What the fuck is my life lmao

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @antique-goth on Tumblr! Come bug me! Title from Roses are Falling by Orville Peck


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